The modern communications era has brought about a tremendous expansion of wireline and wireless networks. Computer networks, television networks, and telephony networks are experiencing an unprecedented technological expansion, fueled by consumer demand. Wireless and mobile networking technologies have addressed related consumer demands, while providing more flexibility and immediacy of information transfer.
Current and future networking technologies continue to facilitate ease of information transfer and convenience to users. Due to the now ubiquitous nature of electronic communication devices, people of all ages and education levels are utilizing electronic devices to communicate with other individuals or contacts, receive services and/or share information, media and other content. One area in which there is a demand to increase ease of information transfer relates to the delivery of services to a user of a mobile terminal. The services may be in the form of a particular media or communication application desired by the user, such as a music player, a game player, an electronic book, short messages, email, content sharing, etc. The services may also be in the form of interactive applications in which the user may respond to a network device in order to perform a task or achieve a goal.
In some situations, mobile terminals may enhance the interaction that users have with their environment. Numerous use cases have developed around the concept of utilizing mobile terminals to enhance user interaction with their local area such as, for example, virtual tour guides and other mixed reality applications. Mixed reality involves the merging of real and virtual worlds. In some cases, mixed reality involves mixing real world image data with virtual objects in order to produce environments and visualizations in which physical and digital objects co-exist and potentially also interact in real time. Mixed reality includes augmented reality, which uses digital imagery to augment or add to real world imagery, and virtual reality, which simulates real world environments using computer simulation.
Augmented reality (AR) is a fast growing area, which is currently available on many mobile platforms (e.g., Symbian™, Android™, iPhone™, Windows Mobile™, etc.). The concept of augmented reality is to overlay graphics or information on a live video stream or a still image from a camera in a communication device. The graphics/information may be of any kind. In augmented reality graphics/information about the environment and objects in it may be stored and retrieved as an information layer on top of a view of the real world.
A common use of augmented reality is to overlay points of interests (POIs) on a video stream or still image. These POIs may be associated with static information, like landmarks, for example or any information that may be geo-coded (e.g., contains a coordinate(s)). An example of the use of augmented reality may be seen in FIG. 1, where information provided by an augmented reality application may be overlaid on a camera view of a communication device. The information provided by the augmented reality application may correspond to icons 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 14, 15, 16 depicting points of interest associated with local places (e.g., museums, stadiums, etc.) in the real world that may be captured by a camera of the communication device.
When a consumer presses one of the icons for example, the user may be presented with more information about an article associated with the selected icon. As an example, augmented reality may be used by consumers when they are in new places, and want to obtain information about things they see. By standing in front of a tourist attraction and pointing a camera at the attraction, the consumer may obtain information about the attraction.
A common issue associated with current augmented reality applications is that the information that the AR applications may provide may be arranged behind each other in the same direction with different distances to the information. As such, it may be difficult to present this information to a display of a communication device. For instance, the icons associated with the information closest to the communication device may block the view to information further away from the communication device. In this regard, some of the information provided by an augmented reality application may not be visible, as it may be hidden behind other information, which may be closer to communication device.
As an example, consider FIG. 2 in which four points of interest 3, 5, 7, 9 are approximately arranged along a line 1. If a user of a communication device was situated at either end of the line 1, and pointed a camera of the communication device in the direction of the line 1, some of the points of interest captured by the camera may be blocked and hidden on the display of the communication device. For instance, the user may be able to view the point of interest (e.g., point of interest 3) closest to the communication device but may be unable to view and access the points of interest (e.g., points of interest 5, 7, 9) that are further away along the line 1 since these points of interest may be arranged behind the closest point of interest (e.g., point of interest 3).
As shown in FIG. 3, currently when a user utilizes a communication device to capture points of interest arranged substantially along a line (e.g., line 1) a point of interest 3 closest to the communication device may be provided by an AR application to a display of the communication device. On the other hand, the points of interest (e.g., points of interest 5, 7, 9) substantially along a line 1 that are further away from the communication device may be hidden or blocked on a display. As such, the user many be unaware that additional points of interest are available for selection.
Typically, the display of points of interest in the same direction that are substantially along a line in augmented reality is achieved by allowing a user of a communication device to select a fixed range or distance in which the user wanted to see information. For example, the user may utilize the communication device to select a fixed range/distance by instructing the communication device that the user wants to see all information within 2 kilometers. However, this existing approach suffers from drawbacks in that it does not actually solve the core problem. For instance, by utilizing this approach, the user may remove some points of interest behind the closest point on interest. As such, the communication device may not enable viewing and access to information that may be of interest to the user. In this regard, the user may be unable to see the points of interest that are further away.
In view of the foregoing drawbacks, it may be desirable to provide an efficient and reliable mechanism that enables points of interest situated substantially along a straight line to be displayed and accessible via a communication device in an augmented reality environment.